Friday, September 14, 2007

Whatever happen to a honest and guilt free version of professional sports in America???? Anybody? Would anyone like to explain why it looks like our beloved teams are full of morons who act like 16 year old gang bangers and high school freshman losers who cheat on all their exams?

Why don't I just explain why I'm about to blow a f&*$@# gasket. I'll make it simple too for all those idiots who call themselves professional athletes and just make an easy to follow list:

I could keep going but what's the point. The fact is this - the vast majority of hard working and deserving professional teams and athletes now have a cloud of negativity over them because of a minority few who want to act like dip shits. It's sad. Very sad that any of this nonsense has to happen in sports today.

NBA, NFL, and MLB players and organizations along with other professional sports are suppose to be role models for our young kids but this is becoming more and more difficult as time goes on. These "role models" forget one key fact that their respective positions possess. That fact is that it is a PRIVILEGE not a right to be thrown on the front of the sports page every week. You don't get put on the front of a Wheaties box by being a thug!!

There are two things that have to happen to turn things around in sports today. The number one action that needs to be undertaken is swift and severe punishment for the scum of their respective sports. What's that Belichick and the New England Patriots? You think it's ok to cheat your way to the playoffs and Superbowl championships? If I was Commissioner Goodell I would suspend Belichick for the season and automatically disqualify the Patriots from the playoffs this year. If Belichick decides to do it again next year then he will be banned from all of professional sports for life and the Patriots will again lose any chance of the playoffs for another year. Oh yeah, and any legal fees that pop up because you're DQ'd from the playoffs and you've pissed off all the Vegas sports gambling industry junkies will be your responsibility too. Michael Vick you think it's ok to partake in dog fighting and commit felony acts? Felons don't belong in the NFL! Again I would ban you for life from all of professional sports.

You know what would happen to me if I got caught stealing narcotic drugs from the pharmacy and coming to work impaired? Let me put it this way I sure as hell wouldn't be fined a small amount of my total yearly income and be allowed to come back to work after a week. My ass would get my licensed suspended for several years and then I'd be put on probation if I was lucky enough to practice pharmacy again. I take my professional role as a pharmacist and my career seriously and so should you! Or as far as I'm concerned all you thugs can line up and shovel shit the rest of your life for the local cattle farmers. Maybe if you had to actually do real work for a living and make a real salary to feed your family you'd appreciate the 24's on your Bentley or the fact that you got a spot on MTV Cribs. I'm not jealous that your making millions of dollars. I'm just disgusted and thoroughly demoralized that your making millions of dollars and getting away with being a caustic piece of human flesh. Hard working, successful people who've played by the rules deserve a $15 million contract. Criminals and cheaters deserve garbage pickup on the side of the road in 95 degree heat and 90% humidity.

And just think I haven't even gotten to my second course of action to correct the problem. And that shall be.... a drastic turn around by the American media. That's right all of you national and local media outlets should be ashamed of yourself. Everyday you spew out negativity and everything that's wrong with society. The first spot on the 10 o'clock news is always a murder or robbery or some kind of poisonous piece of information. You owe it to your fellow citizens to spread positive events to help mold the next generation into something respectable. NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and the rest of you are just as much of a problem as the losers who commit these ridiculous offenses. If you want to show something negative then show Mike Tyson or Michael Vick as they get thrown into their jail cell when it hits them in the ass. And highlight the fact that that's what happens when you don't play by the rules. This should take a total of 15 seconds at the most. And then try spending the majority of your time on more inspiring stories like how Tiger has given back millions through the Tiger Woods Foundation to help poor kids get an education when that wouldn't have been possible before. Or how the Roger Federer Foundation provides millions of dollars to poor communities to improve their surroundings and situations.

Seriously, whatever happened to just doing the right thing?! For Christ's sake America let's stop putting up with this bullshit! Uuuuuggghhhhhh!!! Why doesn't everybody do something positive and productive for a change!

Sunday, August 19, 2007

There's nothing worse than diarrhea. Uuuugggghhhh!!! And it's even worse when a case of liquid stools hits you up when you're a patient in the hospital. I mean you're already feeling like ass and then along comes nature's version of a California mudslide. But I'm here to give you hope my friend. Dr. Aas has a cure!

Allow me to elaborate some on what I actually see at work as a hospital pharmacist. About 10% of hospitalized patients who are being treated with those big, powerful antibiotics for an infection develop a condition called Pseudomembranous Colitis caused by the bacteria Clostridium Difficile. C. Diff is a "bad" bacteria that is in your gut normally but in very small amounts. Your gut is actually made of trillions and trillions of bacteria but most are good. Sometimes when you get treated for an infection by those big, powerful antibiotics they will kill off the "good" bacteria which unfortunately let's the "bad" bacteria take over and the results are you guessed it - The Screamin' Shits!

If you get C. Diff then don't worry because there's two common antibiotics (Flagyl and Vancomycin) used to treat it. But about 20-30% of people will have relapses. What then? Well if you're lucky enough to have 5 relapsing episodes with no help from flagyl or vancomycin then there's always the stool transplant.

Stool Transplant!? You heard right. A poop transplant. You're last thread of hope for returning to normal lies in the hands of a Minnesotan physician name Dr. Aas. Dr. Aas actually takes human feces from a volunteer donor, blends it up until it's nice and creamy, and administers it through a tube that goes from your nose to your gut. Mmmmmm.... Yummy!! It actually works too. In fact I heard about it from The Sanford Guide, which for us medical geeks is our version of the bible in treating infectious disease.

The donor is usually a loved one. Oh Thank GOD! Can you imagine taking shit from a stranger and never being able to look into their eyes to say thank you. Love is a beautiful thing. So what flavor shake would you like the next time you end up in the hospital?

For an inside interview from Dr. Aas himself feel free to read on about this medical miracle:

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

I'm sure that many of you would join me in saying that you feel as though you received a pretty decent primary education with relatively few major disappointments. Grades K-12 most certainly played a vital role in our ability to learn basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic that we use constantly as we go about our daily lives. Like me you also probably find yourself with a very respectable job or career that provides a small, positive, and yet very meaningful impact on the overall daily economy of this great country. But I can't help but ask myself if our education system in the United States is as successful as it should be with the billions of dollars that all of us tax payers set aside for its existence?

So this got me to do a little digging which led to even more questions such as:

Why is there so many poorly run school systems in a majority of our inner cities across the nation?

Why are our greatest assets (teachers) being underpaid and under appreciated so much when they are responsible for molding the backbone of the workforce for our country year after year after year?

Why is the United States slipping behind nations like China, Japan, and India in being the next innovators in today's global economy?

The answer to those questions may be complex but I believe there's one key aspect that has led America to it's average ranked primary education system. That key aspect is the fact that we have a monopoly based education system that has no way of holding itself accountable for less than stellar results. Think about it for a minute. Our schools are setup and run by our government. These schools continue to get ample funding year after year from our tax dollars regardless of the level of skills and abilities that our kids leave with every year. Does that sound fair? You wouldn't keep supporting your local grocery store or car dealership if they continued to produce poor products or poor services would you? Of course not. You'd be finding a new grocery store to shop at or a new car dealership to buy your next car from. So why are we settling for a uniform education system with little to no competition?

It's clear to me that a market based education system is far more successful. I've been a big fan of a market based education system ever since I heard that the Netherlands setup their education system in this way. By the way, the Netherlands children consistently kicked our ass in international standardized tests in which you can view the results via the link above. In a market based system every school is owned by a private entity. This forces schools to become competitive not only in the quality and quantity of courses they provide but also in the costs associated with attending their institutions. The end result is an education system that has to answer to its customer base which is the children and parents who send their children to school there. This in turn leads to constant improvements and advancements in the system since schools are vying for more students to remain ahead of their competitors and remain successful in their business practices.

You're probably wondering right about now how this is financially fair to every child out there. Well, unfortunately, the ability for every child to receive the same level of quality in their educational experience is impossible to accomplish in a market based system and it's one of the few downfalls that critics will point out. But that doesn't mean every child can't receive a good education none the less. Besides, our current monopoly based system doesn't provide for the same quality of education for all of our students now. Do you really believe that there'll be schools in as horrific conditions as our worst inner city schools now if we went to a market based system? And if there are schools doing this poorly I doubt that they'll remain open year after year, decade after decade.

We can help curb the financial burden of a private based school system by setting up a similar system that's already in place for our colleges and universities currently. The US federal government provides a very small portion of the total funds used for our current primary education system. This amounts to approximately $17.31 billion from what I could decipher from the Dept. of Education's proposed budget for 2007 (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/budget/education.pdf). The individual state and local governments account for the bulk of funds used in our current primary school system and Florida's overall 2006-07 budget was approximately $16.92 billion from these sources(http://www.fldoe.org/fefp/pdf/fefpdist.pdf). That's a lot dough! We could take this funding from all federal, state, and local sources and put it in one "big pot" which could serve as financial aid for every child who is a legal citizen of the US. Just like we currently apply for financial aid to go to college we could setup a similar system to apply for financial aid to go to grades K-12. Children would be given a specified amount of aid based on their financial need and the money could be wired directly to the school of their choice to pay for tuition and fees. Parents are completely free to choose which school they want their children to attend and would also be responsible for all fees beyond what financial aid could not cover.

Still a little skeptical of this competition based education system? Then you should look no further than history itself. As they all say history has a tendency to repeat itself and the proof of the superiority and effectiveness of a market based education system goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Ever heard of these great philosophers - Aristotle, Plato, or Socrates? They were all products of the Athenian education system which was privately run. And the proof continues as you read through the history of education reform in Germany, England, and France (http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v4n9.html).

I think we owe it to our children, our teachers, and our country to improve our current education system. I've never been one to settle for average. Yes, it gets the job done but I was raised with a vision that I hope every American citizen has - for making a better life not only for myself but for the next generation I leave behind. And this can only be accomplished by discipline, hard work, and pushing ourselves beyond our expectations. A school system responsive to these values will go a long way in helping us get there.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Oddly enough beginning in the middle is exactly what I'm doing. I'm referring to the startup of this blog, The Tales of Rxvettemaster. I've been an avid blogger for over 2 years now. I'm making the gradual transition from my original blog located on Friendster's website - http://rxvettemaster.blogs.friendster.com/rxvettemasters_blog/. I was looking for a site that allowed more reader feedback and comments which blogger does a superb job of.

So with that said - Welcome readers! Feel free to praise, agree with, or even completely bash my words of political incorrectness. To start with I will repost an entry that I made on my original site titled, "In The Midst of A Journey".

To live a life of success is to live a life of failure while refusing to be satisfied by overcoming the impediments that block our view of the end. The end is not determined by us but by the power above that gives us the determination to strive forward. It cannot be predicted, for it happens to all of us at an unknown time. In each of us resides an incredible desire to earn the respect and love of our fellow human beings before we reach the end. To earn this respect and love is divine. Making the journey to receive such distinct admiration from our own kind is a reflection of our own individual character and turns into the legacy that we'll leave behind when our time has come.